↑Larryosan's blog

Some thoughts on humanity or more importantly, ME.

What do we really want from eachother?

 

Got to stay connected

Well I am here in San Miguel de Allende and finished my trip down from New York. I have taken more traveling man pictures as I do my trip. I wish I had more to say but it is past 2 in the morning and I am finished. Travel is supposed to broaden and as someone who pretends on some level to be an artist or at least someone attempting to create some decent pieces of artistic work, this is my dream. ta ta for now

What a trip, delays over Atlanta but fortunately our flight to Queretaro was delayed so no harm done. Not really a travelogue but just bits and pieces. So here in San Miguel which is an old artist colony with lots of Americans and Canadians but not your usual bunch of retirees sitting in pools all day consumed with local community gossip. These are lots of the people that go on elder hostel trips and are taking classes and God help us, creating retiree art, which from my friend is lots of really bad stuff but gets shows down here because "why not". But there are also mixed in lots of serious artists and we have already seen some of the works hanging in the hacienda that we are staying in. In typical fashion the house is concealed behind a wall with all the great stuff hidden away but fabulous, with three levels and fruit trees in the yard and two fountains and best of all, a house cat. His name is Oscar and he is a great little pussy cato. So I am very happy camper. I am looking forward to starting exploring the town, because last night we came in very late so didn't get to see much except for an overturned bus, smelled the cattle and starting reading the signs which brought back some very rudimentary spanish I learned back in Los Angeles where I grew up. Traveling man is getting lots of pictures and when I get a chance to post some I have bits of our trip. As I said yesterday, travel broadens and now I get a chance to feed my soul so that later I can mix and churn and hopefuly bring together all these bits and pieces and impressions to make something new. Thesis, antithesis, and finally synthesis. Yeah thats the Hegelian ticket. ta ta for now

Although I should have high ambitions for this trip, my main purpose this time is really to get out of New York, away from the drama of work and spend time with people I truly care about. To me that has been the biggest gift of all, to be here with family and friends and to share the good times. Yeah I will soak up the cultural markers in the buildings and the iconic symbolism of the church and all the different expressions of a culture that is foreign but near to me in so many ways. Growing up in Southern California has funny expressions to my upbrining. Where else can you find the pinata moving into various types of celebrations of various different enthnicities. It is now de reguer to have one at parties. And the whole cal mex food style similar but with its own identity distinct from tex mex cuisine. And it is funny coming from New York where the sensibility for Hispanic culture goes to a whole different colonization and mixture of peoples and Spanish is very different from what I grew up with. So this feels so familiar and home like to me, even the arroyo type vegetation. Does this sound like I am expressing a broader view or growing in some way, who knows, today I walked all over town, heard a mariachi band, saw sights that were both familiar and different to me. The flat fronts facades hiding whole little worlds behind wooden doors is a wonder, and we went to art schools and visited artists and looked at crafts and just hung out. And you can see traveling man went along. Now the truth be told, those are just travelogue pics like every other tourist, I know this, and a million tourists have taken shots of all the things I shot in the last few days, so I had to find my niche and my particular and if not unique in the broader sense of the word, at least in the small sense this project is unique to me. It is happening to me and doing this at this time, am I making a splash or a mark in the world, as I usually say, who knows, perhaps, perhaps not, does it really matter? Right now I am in the midst of the process and for me that is the good place to be. The end result can only be judged in time, and then hopefully after I cease caring one way or another. ta ta for now ps. I am doing this on a Mac and the spell check doesn't work so if I do misspell sorry.

I have become a diarist

I Refuse to Live on a Clock Always To the End of My Days

Taking Traveling Man for A Ride

I am near the end of my vacation and I am running out of steam today though it was an interesting day. We spent the day at a hotspring, though the water was really a lukewarm spring but the purpose of being there was a fundraiser for three orphanages in the area. We met up with a guy from Michigan who does a lot of general maintenance of one of the orphanages in town set up for young women, and he drove us to this new pool. The day was filled with screaming but very well behaved young girls and boys who have been placed in these facilities for one reason or another. I did a little volunteer work, like cooking hotdogs and cleaning up. This is a travel blog I know not really very interesting on the artistic front but this is what occuped my time. Of course right now I am burned on my arms to a crisp, as in NYC I am a pale pasty color without any real sun so I burn like heck down here. But what I do want to get before leaving is one of those cowboy hats which even though I will look like a goofy gringo I want to wear back home. There is somthing about the short upturned brim and open weave that I really like and seems to work with my grey hair and beard. Plus I really ache from the horseback riding. What does this all mean, it means I have accumulated some great experiences without being on the hunt for new and novel times, this is just what has happened, mostly due to hanging out with interesting people, that has been my biggest resource. Oh and for the burn, I went out to the back yard and broke off a stem from the aloe vera plant and have been rubbing the sap on my skin. I wish I could stay longer but every vacation ends, even the ones that last forever. My poor traveling man may be beyond the point of actually putting into the mail after this, he has been squished and folded so I think he wouldn't survive mailing, perhaps I will put him in an envelope then mail him out. My friend Tom says hello as they all shamble off to bed. On Monday we will pack our stuff so we can bring our little purchase make it home and then off to NYC to be back with the cats and back to school and then when all is said and done, back to work with all the bullshit and drama and all that is my life. ta ta for now.

So my vacation has ended, we finished the evening out with an Italian dinner which after all the nice Mexican meals was not a winner. Too salty, and it was disappointing as this place was supposed to do better than this. Oh well, we walked around town, there was some kind of scare in the town square which may have been connected to the Cuban celebration, who knows. What can I say, this was a vacation an exercise in project oriented photography, some fun and a little bit of education. Best of all it was spent in good company and next year I will be seeing the town of San Miguel once again as our friends are renting here again. This is what we plan on doing, we will come down here and do more traveling outside of the town and check out all the interesting sites that abound in this area, including a small pyramid that has been undergoing excavation and should be open next year. I would have loved to spend more time in the area to learn more about the culture and see more sites and just relax and get my fill of being somewhere that is not both the US or New York City. I can't wait until the next time, when I can explore and discover more to life and the world. ta ta for now

I will post my final traveling man pics later, poor traveling man is very worse for wear but I will do some minor repairs and off he goes to see if someone else will pick up the ball on this. No pressure, just want to see what happens.

I came home to a nice quiet place, except for our cat who had lots to say. The new cat just huddled down in our pillows as we surveyed for any damage. One plant was worse for wear but overall not too much damage. It was good to be home, tired and burned but happy. I tried to go to my programming class and stayed but was so fried I barely followed the work. Will work to catch up so I don't fall behind, school is important to me.

The biggest excitement was opening my mail, I now am the very very very very very proud owner of an original piece of art from the reclusive but brilliant painter of higher orders of reality in his own little corner of the world. Who may you ask is this reclusive mystery man, who may someday rock the very foundations of the art world in the field of paint on canvas, you wonder, you ponder and you question but no simple answer exists. The base answer that comes immediately to mind is a name but does that reflect the true value this person brings to the world? I say nay, again i say nay. So anywho, the answer to this quandary is the proud visage of Amiko. Yeah I got one of his paintings, and you don't, so there.

ta ta for now

Digression is even better

 

I have passed the 100 mark on entries. Does that mean anything, I wonder as many people can say they have passed some arbitrary mark in life. Some marks or passages do mean something, that is why so many societies have rituals marking these moments, puberty is always a big one, with everything from new roles in the religious community to more severe body modifications and then there are fun parties with all sorts of obligations attached. Sadly some of these are played out on television with expressions of pubescent greed and ego centric excess shown both by the offspring and the originating offenders, the parents. Just go to the new MTV and you can see all that crap being shown on TV. That I know about this is a condemnation of me as much as the producers. But for some reason I am drawn to both the best but also the mundane worst, the decrepit expressions of a vapid empty stupidly ego or self centric culture that seems so abundant and pervasive in our modern society. Not that the other doesn't exist, it is that I have lived through the decades of greed, the decades of self improvement, the decades of "me" that I just feel like I have been covered in slime and the stench just can't seem to wear off. I am not a total cynic, I do believe that there is better out there and that it just isn't really covered in our media as the dark side sells so much better, evil is always more interesting in theater so why not the press as well? I remember after the end of the Vietnam war the ex protesters who were disillusioned turned to such things as EST or a variety of cults or therapies that were becoming so popular. My best moment was being told that we were doomed to nuclear war due to all the consumption of beef at McDonald's by a Krishna follower. The next moment was watching a major Hasidim sect the Lubavitcher who had people celebrating when their leader died as they truly expected him to rise from the dead and bring the second coming or at least their version. Even the other Hasidim sects were embarrassed by the behavior. The sexual scandals and hypocrisy of the various religious leaders runs rampant in our country. People are acting like fools in so many ways, the rise of kids killing kids in schools is very disturbing, and you just go to wonder about it all. What is driving all of this madness, what is fueling peoples various delusions? I haven't the foggiest, but this isn't the first time, we have also lived through the big millennial change over with lots of predictions so this stuff just keeps coming and going. And it gives me something to write about tonight. So I guess it serves some purpose.

ta ta for now

Well I know that it is local news but I suspect that the big time scandal for New York with the Governor Elliot Spitzer has hit the news at least once around the world. Americans must look like two bit yokels for all the excitement we show with sexual scandals. The guy messed up, no doubt about it, primarily not for his sexual improprieties but that he hired a hooker and got caught. But I think with all the reaction his biggest crime was being a kind of guy with a rod up his butt. Stiff necked, moralist towards others and now he has been hoisted upon his own petard. Served up on a steaming plate of hypocrisy and smug satisfaction on the part of his enemies and reluctant "I told you so" on the part of his friends. The Governor goes down, the hooker makes a ton of quick cash and life goes on. From my perspective the Governor made a number of very bad choices which I believe were motivated by political favors that he owed to get to his position. I know of at least one bad choice that affects lots of people that I know. And quite frankly I don't think he was anything to write home about, he didn't do much for his time in, he picked a stupid fight with a nasty but too powerful enemy and didn't get too much positive done to balance anything else he did. My bet was that he was a secret agent for the republicans, considering his mark on the position of governor. He was a yutz, he did some good things when he was a prosecutor but that fades quickly as well.

So when I got back to New York this is what has been dominating the papers, the news has been boring unless you get off on this kind of titallation. Well, sex and boobies sells and why not, don't we all enjoy sex and boobies. I do, at least the last time I checked. Now I know that this was a male oriented statement, but what the heck I am a male oriented guy, now wait a sec that didn't quite come out right, oh wait, come out right, now that was too suggestive, oh no, suggestive now that is too sexual. Oh my goodness , it never ends.

ta ta for now

The well is not filling up, got to move to greener pastures. Or not!

A little under the weather so writing early

I like what I do it's the people I can't stand

No matter how I feel about current circumstances the limits of my ability to control the situation is bound to my absolute position of proscribed power. I am not a manager and I have no influence with those in power. So my control of the situation can only begin and have any effect by starting within and applying self discipline. What I can do is do my work, push my projects forward and be ready to apply myself to opportunities that arise. If they do not, then so be it, if they do then perhaps I can make some things happen for me. The same principles apply to the process of making art, the materials that I work with constrain what I can do, but I can make choices within those constraints. Between the two I may end up with something I can feel proud of. The digital process has its limitations, in some ways the power of alteration of digital information is a limitation. It sounds like it should be the opposite, digital imagery can be manipulated in so many ways, to so many degrees and warped, filtered, overlaid, mixed the list goes on and on. Film has its limitations, film speed, the colors, what you can do physically, even if you can develop the film yourself or not, the processing in printing which again may not be available to you, but I think those limitations can be liberating and offer you alternatives in choices and turn the artist inward to be more creative. I have always had problems with photoshop because to me the biggest issue was knowing when to stop. We have all seen it, the over photoshopped image. There again, self discipline and limitations are the keywords.

I don't know if this is clear at all, but the road of choices are presented or forced by the materials or realm we work in, I think that we need to see how those choices are forced and how we ultimately find control. Maybe as some people would say the piece of art at the end of the making forced its way into being, and that might be the truest statement of all.

ta ta for now

So I have a new group called the Traveling Man goes Traveling. I have sent my traveling man card to a new caretaker. But I hope that is not the end of traveling man as far as a larger project. What I would like to envision is not simply having my traveling man go traveling but others pick up the idea and do their own traveling man or women or thing and put up the pics in my new group. Now let me be perfectly clear about this, it is about having fun and perhaps making a project into something that may impact a little corner of the world. If you want to do this, once twice or more, or not or want to take one of my pics and print it out and take a picture of it in your corner of the world please feel free. Or post a picture you want others to take around the world, the possibilities are endless. But the point is have fun with this, it is not a job or a chore or something that has deadlines, etc. So that is my new project fun thingy.

Amiko has the Traveling Man now and if you are interested you too can be part of the traveling man chain, just contact Amiko.

 

In the meantime I have dispatched more cards and am debating whether or not to try mailing my card with threads on it, to see if any of it survives. I could put it into an envelope but then that kind of defeats the point of postal based art.

Oh, did I mention that I can't bite my nails with braces, so for the first time in over 40 years I have finger nails and will be visiting a manicurist soon.

ta ta for now